Fullbacksympathy

Yes. Our length on the perimeter is insane when Rollie and Brice are guarding the 1-2 at 6’5 (with weight) and 6’7”. Add Juwan who can also guard 1-5 and is a bully with 1-2 physical trees helping and cleaning up the glass and they are really tough. Rollie also rebounds well and puts a ton of pressure on defenses in transition as a result. He hasn’t had elite TO:A but it’s still decent. Having kids like him is sort of like having a power running game in FB. It doesn’t show up in the stats but it tends to wear down opponents. Our team has been elite at getting to the line and making FTs. Their defense is as good as any NU team I’ve ever seen to this point in a season. MSU is a very similar team to us with a little more in the front court. Terrible matchup. But we’re definitely going to be a team no one wants to play because it will be ugly so often. Fine by me.

Turns out Brice’s calm demeanor has just been a mature, hard working, all around quiet winner this entire time. Ho hum 32. Kid is special. My favorite play was near the end when Gary got switched on their quick little guard. The kid drew JG into (what he thought were) deep waters, JG stayed with him step for step and sent his shit into the stands. This was after his tip in over the trees and his clutch 3. He ended the game about three times. Meah is really figuring it out. Berke didn’t score much but had 9rbs and 3 steals. Defense was an absolute clinic despite the terrible officiating. Morgan needs to wake up defensively. Essegian needs to get on Sam’s S&C program. Good defensive team win overall though.

Yep. My favorite coach outside of Fred is Izzo by a mile. He has an even grittier team than normal this season. We learned a lot from them in that asswhooping. Love how they’ve responded.

Refs were clearly out to get us, yes. Always happens in the tournament. We stayed focused defensively. The refs couldn’t keep Hawaii in the game.

Phenomenal defense for the win. Don’t really care how ugly it looked offensively. We kicked their ass by 12 in the second half because they couldn’t score. Hawaii had 5 assists and 15 TOs. 41% from 3 to their 25% 90% from FT to their 67% 38 points in the paint to their 26 10 assists to their 5 8 steals to their 4 4 blocks to their 1 12 TOs to their 15 Lunch pail, Nate Loesner win. Let’s go.

That was a textbook blockout.

Another friggin 30 piece for Brice. Anyone remember when we would get our asses kicked by Hawaii every single time we went out there?

I get it. But I’d add: He’s smart and mature, 3 level scorer, elite ft shooter, and luxury perimeter defender at 6’7”. If he can keep putting clutch closer on tape, he’s getting drafted 2nd round.

Brice is going to the league.

truth.

This too.

Essegian is killing us tonight.

Absolutely elite defense thus far in the second half.

They both guard like hell though.

Terrible foul call on Gary but Morgan gave up an offensive rebound on a damned free throw. He def needed to come out.

Morgan is a step slow defensively tonight. Burke needs big minutes down the stretch. Meah has really hustled as well. Need to overwhelm them defensively more. Really good defense so far in the 2nd half again.

That was a pretty well contested three at the end of the half even though it went in. We’re playing pretty good defense and have a lead on the road. That was a great run. I expect a couple of good offensive adjustments at half. Our length is overwhelming them on the other end. Rebounding has been solid.

MSU is a very bad matchup for us this season. They are definitely a ranked team after this week. Our bigs just learned what the Big 10 feels like in the post against the most physical team in the conference. They’ll get better.

24 assists to 12 turnovers is going to get you a lot of wins. That’s pretty impressive.

Hot take: St. Mary’s is a top 10 team.

Whether he did or not, 2025 freshman Quentin Rhymes is already better than Kilgore Trout.

GG has also had a couple of very good games—one where I thought he was our best player. Both Fred (OC) and Nate (DC) have really detailed systems and very high expectations. There's definitely a huge learning curve for newbies.

CJ is definitely the weirdest one of the bunch. Absolutely nothing about his game matches TAMU’s typical athlete.

St. Mary’s is damned good and about as disciplined as any D1 coach could ask a team to be. They will win a ton of games sans injuries (they have no depth). They will be a problem in the tournament this year. Meah needs to work the low block offensively when he’s in the game. He’s not bad there and it would give us a nice change of pace. Pretty proud of the effort. You can tell they don’t quite know how to win yet but I saw some flashes out of several of them I’ve been waiting on, and they were happy to get chippy. Both good signs.

Yall better get on the GG train. Start him.